Given Hong Kong’s co-existing obsessions with being thin and avoiding outdoor activities, it’s no surprise that there’s a superabundance of products and services designed to help you lose weight without breaking a single drop of sweat.
Enter “Mezo”, a slimming drug that is now under investigation by the Department of Health for containing undeclared ingredients. The box, on the other hand, lists innocent-sounding ingredients like “green tea extract” and “cactus extract”.
Avoid this product at all costs!
Sketchy ingredient number-one, however, is “orlistat”, a Part I poison (!) which causes “faecal urgency, fatty stool, increased defaecation, faecal incontinence” (!!), according to the authorities.
That sounds way worse than any amount of CrossFit to us, but maybe some would actually prefer soiling themselves in public. Oh, and by the way, the drug might also cause severe liver injuries.
Scary ingredient number-two is “lorcaserin”, which can cause “depression and suicidal ideation”, which is when you become unusually preoccupied with suicide. Jesus, people. All this to lose some water weight?!
Make sure you always check that any pharmaceutical product you purchase has been registered with the government, meaning it will have a registration number on the package in the format of “HK-XXXXX”.
And if you really want to lose weight, “a balanced diet and appropriate exercise” is the way to go, as the government reminds the public.
Photo: Sippanont Samchai via Flickr
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